Transforming community spaces into colourful escapes

Pride and Prejudice have had a busy few months planning for the future – here’s what they’ve been up to.

By Cilla McCarthy, Project Co-ordinator.

Pride and Prejudice is based in Plymouth, South West England. Our project’s ethos is to involve people with experience of mental distress, empowering them to redesign their community spaces.

Here service users can develop new ideas for local spaces; giving them a chance to explore their vision, create plans and make their ideas a reality. So far we’ve engaged many service users as well as the wider community and have developed some exciting plans for two very different spaces.

One project group is planning how they’re going to create a vegetable patch and plant some fruit bushes. While another group is investigating how they are going to transform a community space. Among the ideas to brighten up the area with a coat of paint, or to use some pots to plant colourful flowers and make the area a nice place to sit in the summer.

Take a look at some of the designs people involved in the project have come up with.

[click on image to see full screen] These are designs for a garden at a supported housing project by a Pride and Prejudice volunteer and an idea for a vegetable plot at the same location.

[click on image to see full screen] This is a plan for a community space at the HQ building in Plymouth, drawn up after consultation with people who use that space.

There are many people involved in the project coming from all areas of the community. Reason’s why people have said they decided to become part of the project are:

To get out and do something to help others and myself

To boost confidence and self-esteem

I feel that this may help me for the future perhaps [i'll take] a course at university

To be involved in environmental projects and help to improve my local community

That volunteering would be a good way of rejoining the workplace at a slower pace

That I care a lot about our environment and the way people live together

Find out more about Pride and Prejudice.